Folk-Lore of West and Mid-Wales

by Jonathan Ceredig Davies

CHAPTER III.

FUNERAL CUSTOMS.

As the Wedding Customs differed, the Funeral Customs also differed, and still differ in many respects in Wales from those of England. In Wales funerals are public, and the day and the hour on which they are to take place are always announced both in church and chapel, and in some places the day was made known by sending a man or a woman round the houses. One or two from almost every house in the neighbourhood in which the deceased lived attend his funeral, so that funeral processions are very large, even in districts where the population is small and scattered. Both men and women come, many of them from a long distance, the majority of them on foot, others in their traps, and some on horses, and even wet and stormy weather does not prevent them, for they have a profound reverence for the dead and death from time immemorial; and the night before the funeral a prayer meeting is held in the room where the corpse is lying, and pious appeals to Heaven are made in which strong emotions are expressed, the deceased is referred to in stirring sentences, and his death made a theme for warning on the brevity of earthly life, and the importance of the future life of the soul.

This prayer meeting is called Gwylnos (wake-night), and it is the only surviving feature of the various customs which were once in vogue in connection with watching the corpse in the house, or keeping vigil over the dead.

In Wales in former times when any one died, candles were always lighted every night in the room where the corpse was, and it was customary for friends or relatives to sit up all night to watch it, and even at the present day the custom is observed by some. Some are of the opinion that this custom had its origin in pre-reformation times. But it seems more probable to have been a Pagan custom, and much older than Christianity.

The original design of the lighted candles, undoubtedly, was to give light to the spirit of the dead on its way to the other world. This is done for that purpose at the present day in China.

It was once the custom in some parts to open the windows when a person was dying. Principal Sir John Rhys, Oxford, says that he well remembers this done in the neighbourhood of Ponterwyd, in North Cardiganshire, and that a farmer near Ystrad Meurig, in the same county, informed him that when his mother (the farmer’s) was dying, a neighbour’s wife who had been acting as nurse tried to open the window of the room, and as it would not open, she deliberately smashed a pane of it; and the learned Professor remarks that “this was doubtless originally meant to facilitate the escape of the soul.”—Celtic Folk-Lore.

It was once customary in the neighbourhood of Llangennech, Carmarthenshire, to cover with muslin the looking glass in the room in which the corpse lay. But to return to the Wake Night, or keeping vigil over the dead, I have already mentioned that the only feature of the old customs in connection with it still observed is the Prayer Meeting on the night before the funeral, and even this has been almost discontinued in Pembrokeshire, though still popular in Cardiganshire and parts of Carmarthenshire, but the custom is very injurious to the health of those who attend these meetings, as people crowd together in large numbers into the room—often a small one—where the coffin is. It was once the custom for every person on entering the house to fall devoutly on his knees before the corpse, and repeat the Lord’s Prayer, or some other prayer, and then a pipe and tobacco were offered to him, but is not done now; but it was done in former times in many districts before the commencement of the prayer meeting.

The manner of conducting this prayer meeting also differs at the present day to what it used to be once. In former times, before the Nonconformists became strong in Wales, it was the custom for the clergyman to read the common service appointed for the burial of the dead, and at the conclusion of which Psalms were sung; but at the present day the custom is, as a rule, for three or four persons to offer extemporary prayers, and an address delivered on the melancholy subject by the Clergyman of the Church of England or a Nonconformist minister, and hymns are sung. And afterwards the crowd depart for their homes.